Gates foundation refutes doom scenarios

Last week, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released its 2014 Gates Annual Letter, doom-and-gloom headline writers reacted with astonishment.

The annual letter, titled “3 Myths That Block Progress For The Poor,” begins with four simple and, to my mind, factually incontestable sentences: “By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse.”

This good news is old news. For the past two centuries, the material quality of human life has improved dramatically, and that is a blessing.

The letter elaborates on the Gateses’ laudable goal: to extend the trend to the world’s hard corners.

The Gateses advocate smart development. They see 2035 as a date for effectively eliminating poverty in several places on the planet — the poor are not condemned to perpetual poverty (myth No. 1). Even though a billion people remain in “extreme poverty” (which is a reason to act), why will countries that are poor not remain poor? The Gateses invoke the obvious: Because they haven’t. “Incomes and other measures of human welfare are rising almost everywhere, including in Africa,” they note.

Unfortunately, as the letter acknowledges, an ingrained perception of grand decline doom and perpetual poverty is prevalent and a political factor. In my view, “doom vision” is not simply a political factor, but a source of political friction hindering economic development.

I’ll expand on the Gateses’ anti-poverty goals and the doom industry. I pegged the up-trend’s origin as 1800, give or take. I’m a steam engine, electricity and Adam Smith guy. But steam ships and railroads substitute fairly reliable, mobile mechanical power for body-breaking biological power (camel, horse and human) and iffy wind power.

However, fear sells, and doom is fear on steroids. Numerous economically successful authors, academics and, yes, politicians have forged (in all senses of the word) economically rewarding careers based on predicting future doom. Paul Ehrlich serves as an example. Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” sold millions of copies, but the world was supposed to be starving and lightless by the end of the 1970s — or was it the 1980s?

Foreign Affairs noted in its January 2010 issue, “Thanks to innovations and efforts such as the “green revolution” in farming and the widespread adoption of family planning, Ehrlich’s worst fears did not come to pass. In fact, since the 1970s, global economic output has increased and fertility has fallen dramatically, especially in developing countries.”

In the 21st century, Ehrlich fights a rearguard action. Eventually, he says, he and other Malthusian doomsayers will be right.

Yeah, Thomas Malthus. Death by famine and disease, he argued, eventually will curb overpopulation. To his credit, the Rev. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) confronted idiot utopianists. He advocated economic policies that favored long-term stability over short-term needs. However, Ehrlich’s bestseller is re-worked Malthusian catastrophe. There only is so big a pie. When the resources run out, the future is hand-to-mouth Pleistocene subsistence.

However, the trend is bigger pie, whether the trend is two, six, or 100 centuries old (rough end of the Pleistocene, beginning of the Agricultural Revolution). Human creativity discovers new resources.

The Gateses’ letter contends foreign aid is not a waste (myth No. 2). For me, this is a bit of a straw-man argument, but a straw man with a point. Few people argue that aid is a total waste. The smart guys always have favored targeted aid. The Gateses say their foundation focuses on hard-nosed results. Accountability matters, and it helps avoid the nemesis of corruption.

The Gateses’ myth No. 3 is “Saving Lives Leads to Overpopulation.” Mr. Gates writes, “The planet does not thrive when the sickest are allowed to die off, but rather when they are able to improve their lives. Human beings are not machines. We don’t reproduce mindlessly. We make decisions based on the circumstances we face.”

Indeed we do. Take that, Malthusian Catastrophe.

Austin Bay is an author and colonel (retired) in the U.S. Army Reserve. He writes for Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. Send email through www.Creators.com or www.austinbay.net.

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